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Note: Since I published this post I have written a much more in-depth book that looks at values and how crucial they are to your life.

So if you really want to get to the root of what motivates you, who you really are and how you can use that information to fulfill your potential check out ‘Aligning With Your Core Values’

Also included in the bundle are copyright free forms for other Professional Life Coaches to us, an instructional video, an audio version of Aligning With Your Core Values and a Kindle version. There’s also 100% money back guarantee if you aren’t completely satisfied.

What Are Values?

If you aren’t that keen on in-depth posts I suggest you check out 7 Killer Life Coaching Questions, because that has lots of lovely sub-headings and bullet points for you to admire. This one isn’t scannable, because to do it justice I’m also (probably) going to use video to explain the process I take clients through.

So what I’m really saying is this is some heavy personal development shit that needs your total concentration and commitment if you’re going to get the most out of it. And make no mistake, it’s the single most powerful thing you can do if you genuinely want to understand yourself.

Doing this and getting inaccurate results is worse than not doing it at all.

I will be dropping some snippets from other posts in so forgive me if you remember reading the odd paragraph before either here or in any of my e-books, but I don’t intend to reinvent the wheel.

Why Are Values Important?

Let’s kick things off by explaining why values are so important. I could say trust me I’m a life coach and they just are, but I’m sure you’re looking for a bit more than that, so let’s take a closer look.

You may have noticed that in November of 2008 we had an election here in the United States. Not only was it the first time an African American was bidding for the White House, but just as importantly in a great many respects was the fact it was the first general election in the age of Facebook and Twitter.

This isn’t the time or the place to explain how Obama, or more accurately Obamas campaign managers, kicked McCains ass from here to somewhere a very, very long way away……and then all the way back again by clinically utilizing social networking, but needless to say they did, and it probably won them the election.

What was even more fascinating, at least from a life coaching and people watching perspective, was how thousands of people that had gotten to know (and often like) each other through social networking over the previous months suddenly interacted with one another.

Now it has to be said that I’m an open book. I admit to being a bit of a liberal, I like the idea of free medical care, abhor war and I even want to see homeless people housed. And shock horror, I don’t really care if that means I pay an extra cent on the dollar in tax.

If you’re a regular here there’s a fair chance, even if you don’t necessarily agree with me you’re not particularly horrified, and you certainly wont be surprised. If you are surprised you may want to take a class in reading between, behind and even on the lines.

What took place in the lead up to the election, was nothing short of social networking carnage.

People that had previously been getting on famously were all of a sudden declaring each other idiots, nazis, commies, morons and in my case, I was told in one rather amusing e-mail, I was a Queen-loving Limey bastard that should fuck off back from whence I came.

I don’t even care for the Queen, so that one really cut me to the quick!

The reality is nothing had changed in the online relationships. Except that is, one crucial thing. Peoples most important core values had risen to the surface for all the world to see.

When you see the core values of an individual you are effectively viewing their identity.

Core values are the things that people will and sometimes do, die for. So bearing that in mind, even though the events were somewhat sad they were still highly predictable.

I have posted on topics as diffuse as God, the Law of Attraction and Patriotism and they always generate more comments than if I talk about life coaching in general, beliefs or some vague self-development topic.

The reason being is few people have values that are heavily invested in those topics. You may well have an opinion on Life Coaching (or you may not), but I doubt it will be higher up your list of priorities than education, religion, health care or war.

So What Exactly Is A Value?

The lazy bloggers friend, Wikipedia defines a value system thus:

“A value system is a set of consistent ethic values (more specifically the personal and cultural values) and measures used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity.”

I can’t say I disagree with any of that, but then again I’m not sure what it really tells us because we are the ones left to define what is ethical and what demonstrates integrity. They’re subjective terms and mean different things to different people based on the values and beliefs they hold.

Confusing stuff, eh?

Have you ever been watching a traditional TV when an advert came on extolling the virtues of either a Blue Ray movie or a swanky new super cool ultra flat TV that costs more than your first house?

It’s a frustrating experience because it doesn’t matter what they do or tell you, you’re still looking at a low-def picture and can’t see what they’re trying to demonstrate.

The same goes for values.

When we look at a situation and decide whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, we do so through the filter of the beliefs and values we already hold.

A couple of years ago I was questioned by Ali Hale after I declared there are no right or wrong values, just values that are right or wrong for the individual

Surely, she argued (and not all unreasonably), things like murder are always wrong.

To begin with, murder isn’t really a value because the value would be what the person was looking to achieve through committing the act of murder.

For example, if I axed up my mother-in-law it could be for any number of reasons.

You have opinions on what you believe to be right or wrong and that’s fine, but understand they are based on your beliefs and values and not any Law of Physics, Law of Nature or even Law of Attraction for that matter. They’re purely subjective.

I don’t think murder is right and I also don’t think lots of others things are right such as stealing, harming others, homophobia, racism or not retweeting my blog posts, but that’s only my opinion based on my values, it doesn’t necessarily make it so.

Caveat: I realize I’m stripping this down to the bare bones and being very literal. There have to be some societal values agreed upon even if it’s only tacitly, otherwise law and order would break down. So cut me some slack here.

Your values are determined by outside forces over many years whether you like it or not. In fact it’s not unreasonable to say they’re not even really your values, you’ve simply acquired them through exposure.

Value sets are influenced by countless things including your family (or even lack of family), your friends, television, politicians, Church leaders, cultural influences, books you have read, incidents (both positive and negative) you’ve seen or been involved in, the country you were born in, conversations you had and much more.

You can see the infinite amount of permutations and it’s easy to understand why in over 5 years I’ve never had two clients with the same top 3 values.

Your values tend not to shift too much when you get past your early twenties. We all have a tendency, as with beliefs, to look for information to cement the values we already posses and filter out information to the contrary.

That is the reason why so few Republicans would ever listen to Michael Moore with a completely open mind and why so few Democrats would read Ann Coulter without smirking.

Having said that, things can change radically under certain (and often traumatic) circumstances.

Suppose you’ve never had trust as a main value and then imagine the following scenario:

One day you come home early from work expecting the house to be empty with your partner at work.

On entering the house you see an empty Ambien bottle on the kitchen table and you think, “that’s weird, we don’t stuggle to sleep”

You shrug it of, but as you walk toward the bathroom you spot a 5 iron leaning against your bedroom door, yet neither you nor your partner play golf.

As you are trying to work out what is going on you hear some very strange noises coming from the bedroom and your partner yelling,

“You da man, get in the hole, get in the hole!”

Do you think trust would suddenly find it’s way into your most important values?

I would say there is a better than even chance.

Fortunately though, extremes like the one above are not the norm and your values will remain fairly stable.

Another caveat: You will have dozens of values, but there will be a strict hierarchy that I will come to. That doesn’t mean values that are lower down your list aren’t important, just not quite as important as those nearer the top.

If you want to get a clearer idea, here is a far from exhaustive list of values that I send to clients prior to starting this process.

When Values Collide

Have you ever argued with friends or family members about politics, religion, whether its right to give money to homeless people, the conflict in Iraq or the morality of Life Coaches that sometimes drop the F Bomb on their blogs?

That will be because you have conflicting values on those subjects.

That’s the reason you simply cannot ever agree on certain topics no matter how much somebody tries to persuade you. Of course many of us still carry on banging our head against the wall and trying to ram home our point, but all we do is polarize people.

That doesn’t in any way mean you can’t be in a really strong and stable relationship and/or friendship with somebody that has conflicting values. In fact it can often be just the opposite because different values encourage compromise and deeper understanding, if that is, you’re prepared to listen with an open-mind. And yes, open-mindedness is indeed a value.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s wise to know when agreement will never happen. I stopped talking politics with my dad years before he died because we were poles apart and every discussion ended up in us thinking the other was a complete imbecile.

It’s the ultimate in arrogance to believe we have a handle on what values are right and wrong and others need to understand that. Yet that is how every argument, fight, and war starts out.

“These are my values, they’re better than your values and if you cannot see that, then I am going to force them upon you for being such a dumbass.”

How many wars could be summed up with the above phrase? Probably all of them.

Are All Values Equal?

This is such a tricky question that I almost didn’t include it because I honestly don’t know if I know the answer. I think I do, but it’s really only ‘an’ answer as opposed to ‘the’ answer.

That may be the worlds biggest cop out or it may a fair and reasonable way of saying everything I’m about to say could be wrong.

I believe there are what can be loosely termed as meta-values and may contain values such as ‘Peace’ ‘Love’ and ‘Oneness’

Note: Meta Values is something I take a much closer look at in the book Aligning With Your Core Values

A year or so ago I wrote a post on enlightenment, that wasn’t really about enlightenment at all because I have no idea what that even is, but it was about peace as a meta value.

Here is an extract to explain what I mean:

When I think about enlightenment it always brings to mind one word, and that word is ‘Peace’. It seems to me no matter what interpretation I put on it, I cannot see how enlightenment can be achieved without total peace of mind.

If I gave you peace of mind from my special life coaches box of values you’d be able to deal with anything that happens to you in your stride.

If you became ill ,but you were at peace, you’d be ok. If you lost your job, but retained peace of mind, you’d be ok. If your puppy bit your ass, but you retained total equanimity, you’d be ok.

I must stress that being peaceful doesn’t mean you’ll always be happy. Happiness comes and goes and sometimes it’s right and proper to be unhappy. That’s part of life. You have to experience the lows to appreciate the highs.

In any case, it’s not unhappiness that cripples people, it’s the internal conflict that rages. The guilt, the comparison, the jealousy, the anxiety, the regret and so forth that so often precipitates or at least accompanies unhappiness that’s the real problem.

If we can face adversity with an acceptance and a belief that “this too shall pass” (I know that’s a bit cheesy and Oprahish, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it) then we can remain peaceful and accepting of whatever is happening in our lives.

And by the way, being in a state of peace does not mean you get nothing done because you’re too busy wondering around with a beatific smile on our face.

I think that’s as far as I’m going to go for today because for those of you still awake it’s a lot to digest.

Over the next couple of posts I’m going to:

Show you how to work out your own value hierarchy and how you can use that to help beat procrastination and increase motivation.

Explain the difference between internal and external value conflicts and why Enron taught us a valuable lesson.

Give you the shirt off my back, because I’m that kinda guy.

As I realize some new visitors may read this first and wonder where the hell the other posts are, part 2 is called What Are MY Values? and part 3 is How To Get Motivated and you can read both by clicking the links.